The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

The first semester of Theory and History of Art and Design introduces students to artistic traditions and ways of making, building, crafting, and thinking from across time and space. This course explores a diverse array of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods from the histories of art, architecture, and design, with attention to histories of race, gender, labor, technology, the environment, and colonialism. Lectures are organized roughly chronologically but change annually with the expertise of lecturing faculty.

Registration for first-year students is processed by the Division of Liberal Arts.

This course will trace major developments in contemporary art from the 1960s to the present. Beginning with the shift away from modernist abstraction in the late 1950s and proceeding chronologically, we will examine the diverse array of movements, practices, and events that have come to define the larger field of contemporary art: minimalism, conceptualism, and pop in the 1960s, site specific and performance art in the 1970s, the culture wars and postmodernist debates of the 1980s, and the various forms of "abject," project-based, and "relational" art that followed. Foregrounding problems that have remained central for artists throughout this period - the status of the body, the institutional conditions of artistic production and reception, the politics of representation and difference - we will focus on putting the shifting terrain of contemporary art into broad social, historical, and theoretical perspective. In turn, we will attempt to develop a comprehensive critical framework for understanding the aesthetic and political stakes of contemporary art today.

Elective

From international film festivals to university campuses, from museums of modern art to neighborhood theaters, Iranian cinema has now emerged as the staple of a cultural currency that defies the logic of nativism and challenges the problems of globalization. Hamid Dabashi writes this in the introduction to his landmark study of Iranian cinema, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present and Future (Verso, 2001). This course introduces you to the history of Iranian cinema, from the Iranian New Wave (1960s) to the present. It examines the ways in it occupies an important place on the scene of global cinema while it defies the logic of nativism. We will watch some of the most prominent movies by acclaimed Iranian filmmakers Dariush Mehrjui, Ebrahim Golestan, Nasser Taghvai, Amir Naderi, Sohrab Shahid-Saless, Forough Farrokhzad, Jafar Panahi, Masoud Kimiai, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahram Beyzaie, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Marzieh Meshkini, Asghar Farhadi, Tahmineh Milani, Ebrahim Hatamikia, and Kamran Shirdel. We will also look at the works of diasporic artists, including Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, Ramin Bahrani, Mitra Farahani, Ana Lily Amirpour, and Granaz Moussavi.

Elective

The arts have always played a central role in social protest. This course examines the arts in five key socio-political revolutions in the modern and contemporary Muslim world. We will focus on arts practices that have emerged from and contributed to political movements, including religious movements, struggles for national liberation from colonial and imperialist domination, and movements for social equality and against state oppression. Students will learn about the cultural politics of revolutionary movements in the Muslim world and will gain skills in analyzing the role of a wide array of art forms, including traditional arts, cinema, poetry, visual and performance arts, zines and protest graphics, and comics journalism. The course will also introduce crucial theories and debates about relationships between aesthetics and politics, the role of artists and other intellectuals in political struggle, and the way governments attempt to control what artists make and who it reaches. Comparative works will be drawn from global social revolutions about disarmament, race and gender equality, indigenous rights, climate action, and more. In addition to regular assignments and biweekly quizzes, students will develop and present their own final project using historical visual strategies to support a social cause of choice. 

Elective

This course offers an introduction to the history and practice of artists as collaborators, critics, and creators in art museums from the 1960s to the present. Exploring questions concerning the purpose, possibilities, and problems of art museums, students will be invited to consider how artists have responded to museum collections, histories, and spaces. We will discuss different strategies artists have used to offer alternate ways of experiencing, examining or critiquing historic and contemporary art and design and other issues. Students will use a wide variety of interpretive lenses to analyze the interventions of a diverse range of artists, including Andy Warhol, Fred Wilson, Andrea Fraser, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lee Mingwei, Simone Leigh, and artists of RISD’s own Dorner Prize, among others. Students will also be invited to consider training in studio art as preparation for different ways of working with museum collections—from conservation and curation to education and exhibition design. Through case studies, readings, guest lectures, and field trips, students will explore key issues, debates, and concerns of artists as collaborators and museums as sites of critical and creative production. Coursework includes writing, research, and creative projects inspired by students' own artwork and contemporary and historic objects from the collection of the RISD Museum.

Elective

While definitions of “performance art” remain vague and contested, this introductory class examines the practice as it emerges in the early 20th century as a tool to explore shifting understandings and experiences of embodiment. We will return to the open questions of how artists engaged the locus of 'the body' to evaluate and reevaluate the rapid changes of the 20th and 21st centuries, in all of their ethical unclarity. We will consider recurrent themes of ephemerality, time, technology, documentation, and the shifting roles of artists, cultural institutions, and audiences. Students will develop the skills to describe languages of the body, both in stillness and in movement, interrogate theoretical texts and frameworks of performativity, and develop a sense of historical narrative to contextualize the thematic questions broached by “performance art.” We will keep a journal to ground interpretations of key works and readings in close analysis, attend a performance artwork and write a critical response, and craft a final project with the option for a research paper or performance work.

Elective

This course will critically examine how global architectural exchange shapes cultural identities and historical narratives, and engages with dominant power systems—understanding architecture as a symptom of larger political, social, and cultural forces. Covering the period from The Enlightenment to the early 20th Century, it is structured as a dialogue between cases of Chinoiserie, Japonisme, and Indo-Saracenic architecture and decolonial, race, and gender studies. This course will lead students to ask questions: What kinds of inventions result from crosscultural exchange? How do these modes of representation reinforce or subvert established cultural beliefs? How can we characterize the process of architectural circulation across regions? Students are encouraged to bring cases of Chinoiserie, Japonisme, and Indo-Saracenic influences connected to their personal backgrounds to develop a unique understanding of global architectural exchanges between Asia and the world.   

Elective